When I started the blogtober-write on your blog everyday for a month-thing I felt it polite to ask what you would like me to write about; to potentally limber me up a bit posting wise, and to help me fill the potential yawning (heh!) gulf of 31 consecutive blog posts! Fortunately there was only one suggestion, and so after this I can continue to go on about the joy of doll houses and bunting to my hearts content for the rest of the month-hurray!
Luce, who writes my favourite blog, Being of Sound Mind, asked me to tell a secret.
I've agonised over the idea for a while. Not because of a fear of making public some gruesome experience, in fact you'd find I'm a bit of an open book in that regard if you knew me in person, but because, sadly, I don't seem to have any secrets. No secrets. Not one. There are some things that not many people know; my horrible post-childbirth bowel 'issues', a same-sex-sex experience; an interest in wicca for example: but not a single secret that no one else knows.
I feel a bit sad about it. A secret is a gollum-like shiny-thing-to-look-at-in-private to my mind, and now I've noticed, I'm rather missing it. Like a lost wedding ring I keep going to fiddle with it and find it's not there. I think it indicative of the rather lovely-if-tame lifestyle I now lead. I just don't have the time, mental space, or exciting life experiences which beget secrets anymore.
And then I thought of a semi-secret. Like the ones above, one that not many people know, but one which is blogaboutable (hey, what a cool word I just coined!!!) unlike rectocle (urgh and yawn in equal measure); a semi-secret which, like my daughter Claudine with her toy-mouse-no-one-else-is-allowed-to-play-with, I hug to myself from time to time and rejoice in it's mine-ness.
Funnily enough, you already know my secret, for my secret is this blog!
I started to write this blog in March, a blog following enthusiast wanting in on the action. Time was available as Claud had settled into a pattern of sleeping at lunchtime for a short period. I suspected I'd give it up after a few posts, as I had a previous blog attempt because I'm a bit of a techno luddite, not into TV, fancy phones, facebook and the like. So I didn't tell any of my friends what I was doing. But of course I've kept going and wonderfully, along the way, I've picked up 50 odd people who follow me along and banter. I remember thinking that I'd tell people once I'd written a few more things so I'd get more confident writing here without pressure to entertain, and so people would actually have something to read. I can't remember at what stage I began to enjoy that no one I knew in person, other than my husband knew about my blog. It wasn't much, my secret, but it was special, it felt like the beginning of something. The start of what I don't know. Just RSI probably!
At one stage early on I emailed my sister and a good friend in England to let them know I was blogging, safe in the knowledge that with these enthusiasts for everything, including the online world, there would be no criticism of the blog 'lite' topics, sporadic posting and poor photos. Instead I was surprised to find that neither expressed any interest in it, nor ever mentioned it in conversation. Of course I shouldn't have been surprised at all. One thing I knew and ranted on about when I worked as a therapist with people with social anxiety disorders is how profoundly uninterested in anyone else but themselves people on the whole are (and my, isn't a blog living proof of that!). Since then a fellow lady-who-la-leche's mentioned having a blog, The Mum Experiment, and I told her about mine. Then a playcentre mum I know who caught me out taking photos with intent got in-the-know. But, hee hee, no one else knows!
Of course being the superstitious sort I'm now thinking that I ought to give up my rather puny secret and tell people. I mean it's hardly The Secret Life of a Call Girl is it!!! I'm certain it wouldn't change anything. But, I'll really miss my secret. Of course I should ideally go out and get me some secrets of the proper no one else at all knows variety (could be fun, rarrr!) but in the meantime, what do you think? Do all your friends know and follow your blog, or are you more content in the company of relative strangers? Does it affect how, what and when you write to have your everyday people reading, for better or for worse, or do you wish you had a secret blog life too?
